3D printing with metal: The final frontier of additive manufacturing

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The holidays are a great time to sit back, relax, and watch the world happen around you. Few areas of technology have seen as much development in one year as that of 3D printing. Undoubtedly, the most dramatic and challenging has been printing with metal. For your enjoyment, we have assembled a few incredible videos that showcase the power and flexibility of 3D printing with metal — to not be amazed is to be numb to the technology of our day.

The first attempts to print with metal can be traced back to the 1880s when the first welders used carbon electrode arcs to fuse two pieces of metal. It was later found that if a third sacrificial stick of material was used a metal bead could be laid down. When Humphry Davy first discovered the electric arc in 1800, he chose to call it an arc since the evaporating gases buoyed it up into an erratic but generally rounded shape. It was not until the advent of electron beams and vacuum chambers that precise metal printing would first be made possible.

The real breakthrough that has enabled 3D printing for the masses has been the laser. Spray welding is a technique that has been used for decades to build up worn motor shafts, but it is far too crude for controlled additive printing. Spray welding uses a gravity-fed powdered metal dispenser integrated into a special oxygen-acetylene torch head which melts the powder as it is dispensed. Swapping the torch for a laser gave us the powerful construction tool we have today. A powdered metal feedstream, confined and protected against oxidation with a surrounding jet of inert shielding gas, fused by a laser piped through a central bore in the head is now the state of the art technology. Trumpf makes one such device, as shown in the video below.

NASA recently used a technique called selective metal melting (SLM) with great success to build rocket motor components out of steel. NASA’s engineers have been able to produce parts with complex geometry only previously imagined, and with dimensional accuracy beyond that possible with traditional fabrication methods.

To compete with modern manufacturing methods, perhaps the fastest method of metal printing is to deposit a powder metal matrix that contains binders. After each layer is deposited, the binder is melted and the metal is temporarily held together until it is fused in a final bake in an oven. The part can be printed entirely in this way, or just a shell can be printed which can then be used to mold metals of a lower melting point.

One of the premier organizations to capture public attention is Shapeways, which has streamlined the process to be able to provide a (metal or plastic) printed part in the shortest time possible. It has a variety of metal materials to choose from, and even offers precious metal printing in silver. Nowadays you can do a lot with a thousand dollars in the world of 3D printing — and what you can do with few hundred thousand is a whole lot more incredible.

When Apple was selling bare-bones phone cases for exorbitant prices, many people decided that it was time to take matters into their own hands — they began to design their own cases with the help of Shapeway’s tools. A price of $8.00 per cubic centimeter for stainless steel, $6.00 handling fee, and optional gold plating of $9.00 made it a no-brainer for the artistically inclined. As long as your part fit inside a bounding box of 750x380x380mm and had walls at least 3mm thick, Shapeways could probably make it. The only drawback you might find is that the stainless steel used is similar to the common 400 series steel — sufficiently magnetic to be undesirable when those properties are not wanted, but too weakly magnetic when magnetic properties might be of use. Likely that too will soon change.

The future of 3D printing with metal

Two technologies on the horizon will offer us even higher resolution parts. Two-photon laser curing permits extreme precision by using laser absorbers in the binders which are only activated by simultaneous absorption of two photons. If the laser beam is then strongly focused with a high degree of convergence, it will pass through most of the material without reaction, achieving sufficient density for curing only within a localized volume. Similar techniques have already been used to etch features inside the center of a piece of glass.

The other tool increasingly at our disposal is the femtosecond laser. Initially the province of high-end systems for micromachining or corrective eye surgery, they are now finding application in 3D printing. Femtosecond lasers are still prohibitive in cost, in part due to the sapphire crystal at their heart. They use pulse compression to squeeze a huge amount of optical energy into an extremely short pulse and give a lower power laser the ability to fuse metal. Aluminum oxide, which chemically is identical to sapphire, structurally lacks the clarity one normally associates with it. Aluminum oxide can be printed and fused — printed sapphire, now that would be something else.

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originalone

Mind-boggling, to say the least. Goodness, the future is here in living color. I wonder, though the use of 3-D printing using plastic of some sort to manufacture a part of a firearm, which failed on first firing, since removed as I understand, could this also be used to make the same part[s] for a firearm using metal instead of plastic? Not that I’m advocating doing so, but the ability seems close to being a reality. Only a matter of time I suppose.

Joel Detrow

Once that happens, gun bans will be pointless.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001737904697 Tee Zackem

3D printers WILL BE banned. It’s just a matter of time.

Joel Detrow

Yeah, if there’s people dumb enough to think banning guns will prevent all the problems that simple restriction and regulation would prevent even better. Besides, you’d also have to ban machine shop equipment, because anyone with a machine shop can also make a gun.

ThunderBone

Now imagine what would happen if people start building nuclear or biological weapons with these amazing equipment? Perhaps you would then change your political affiliations and become a Liberal.

Joel Detrow

Except if someone can make those things with a 3D printer, they wouldn’t need one anyway. Nuclear weapons are impossible to make without radioactive material, and those are as heavily regulated as can be. Biological weapons require a large, fresh amount of some kind of pathogen deadly or harmful to humans, and the amounts required would take either a lot of fresh human corpses or a long time amassing it with a large amount of specialized equipment that just can’t be printed.

Rather than restricting the rights of 99.9% of people because of 0.1% of guns (or other weapons), it’s better to merely ensure that dangerous things are only put in the hands of rational, responsible human beings (heavy regulation), and rely on bettering society as a whole to prevent the creation of monsters that wish only for the destruction of their fellow man.

ThunderBone

Its all about those 0.1% you know.

Do you know we restrict the individual liberty of second amendment loving conservatives to own, buy or trade nuclear or biological weapons because the consequences of misuse by those 0.1% are quite unfathomable? So welcome to the world where individual liberties are subservient to common good. So while vast majority of those second amendment loving conservatives can hoard as many assault rifles they can to protect themselves against a potential of government taking away their individual liberties, but they still cannot own nuclear or biological weapons to fight the government.

While i agree at this point obtaining enriched uranium is the most difficult thing to do. This is also the real bottle neck to make nuclear weapons by any country. But dont be sure it will remain that way for too long.

An extraordinary cheap, lazer based technique has been just developed by GE that promises significant improvement in uranium enrichment over traditional centrifuge based approach. It is so easy and so clearly superior that US government has banned GE from divulging the information in a patent! This advance has gotten every one rattled and is being discussed at the highest levels to figure out what to do with this deadly advance.

now coming back to guns – especially semi automatic and automatic assualt rifles. Trust me on this – semi automatic assault rifles have also been misused by those 0.1% to kill small children ( i am not making this up). So its all about those 0.1%.

Joel Detrow

I simply don’t think banning these guns for EVERYONE will solve anything. Background checks? Psychological evaluations? Biometrically-locked storage cabinets? I support all of these things, but we don’t exactly have a history of successfully banning commodities (drugs, alcohol). It’s better to tightly restrict these things so that law-abiding citizens still have a way to get the things they want.

By the way, earlier you called me…well, a non-liberal. It’s bad form to label your opponent as a (conservative?) just because you think they disagree with you. Labels don’t promote understanding, they limit it.

HopelesslyFaithful

you lost me on the evals and storage lockers….what good is a weapon going to do for you when it is locked up and takes 10 mins to get?

Joel Detrow

A good biometric lock takes at most 5 seconds to open – that’s the only delay an owner would have if they needed to get their guns out. Psychological evaluations, background checks, even mandatory inspections and training drills would ensure that only law-abiding citizens of sound mind are allowed to possess guns. This would go a VERY long way to reducing gun violence, while not ultimately restricting anyone who is fit to own a gun.

HopelesslyFaithful

i am very against those because it is already hard enough for the average person to own a gun and get even a little training. I have been putting off on buying my wife and myself each a pistol along with two good rifles because the cost is too much as is and my wife and i are not even exactly poor. We are middle class to just below middle class. I can’t even justify the expense right now even though i am about as pro guns as you can get and i believe everyone should have a fair lot of weapons. Those background checks either cost the little guy to much to even exercise his rights or they cost the guy that is well off and i am against both. I am a firm believe that the person is responsible to get training and that it is not required. If that person fucks up it is on him and him alone. I see all these new laws and restrictions a further restrictions of rights. We never had them in the past and we never had an issue so the issue are not guns and training. It is a social issue. At least that is my perspective.

Also if you didn’t skim this section around again i made some other comments on some other posters as well you might be interested in. I’ll respond to your other post later. Didn’t get any sleep last night and i am having a harder time than normal to try to make coherent sentences and even at good moments my writing blows.

Also this hole sound mind stuff really annoys me. Who says who is of sound mind? That stuff can be used and abused to restrict rights like it is cool. According to the latest statistics i have heard on the radio supposedly 1 in 80 people have autism…yea right? That “mental” issue has been blown so far out of context it is not even funny. Plus when you start saying certain people are not eligible to own a weapon because so and so reason it is a slipper slope that never shrinks. It just gets bigger and bigger and restricts more and more rights.

Joel Detrow

To make an analogy, cars aren’t even made to kill people, but driving them legally requires over 40 hours of training and a final exam. If you can’t pass that exam, you aren’t allowed to drive a car. Long distance personal transportation is far more essential to modern society than guns are, yet you don’t complain about the regulations placed on them, right? How are guns somehow more vital to individuals in modern society than cars?

Cars these days are so ubiquitous that it’s very seldom that anyone has to actually pay an instructor to train them. The only time they do that is if their parents work the night shift or something, or if none of their parents or other close family members have licenses. Treating it like cars, direct training perhaps wouldn’t be required, but passing the evaluations would. They wouldn’t have to be expensive, just provide your own gun and ammunition, and go through a few test scenarios to demonstrate you know how and when you can safely fire a gun, as well as how to disassemble and clean your personal weapon.

As for background checks, who says the buyer has to pay for it? When I got my job, they did a background check, but did they charge me? Of course not. If you’re buying the gun, the gun shop would most likely be the one that pays for the background check. The only cases of individuals would be at gun shows, but there’s already a fee to get in, isn’t there?

“I am a firm believe that the person is responsible to get training and that it is not required. If that person fucks up it is on him and him alone.” The huge problem with this thinking is that someone fucking up when a gun is involved can very easily end the life of someone other than the one using it. This happens all the time when kids get ahold of a family member’s guns or Jethro having no sense of safety and tossing his loaded gun on the picnic table, and for just anybody to have the “freedom” to own a gun without having to pass safety & competency tests and a background check is NOT worth these deaths.

Lastly, please consult this page to find out how much biometric locks or gun lockers cost: http://justfuckinggoogleit.com/ (seriously though, biometric gun lockers are generally a few hundred dollars, which when guns, phones, and computers are all also hundreds of dollars and cars are thousands, is not that much)

HopelesslyFaithful

1 cars are not a protected right so that makes it irrelevant.
2 protecting yourself is far more important than driving
3. You can make due without a car very easily countless Americans already do
4. I never said i was fine with car regulations. I am mostly impartial at this point. I have not given it a large amount of thought.
5. I could go on but i am far too lazy.

Also all expenses for background checks and the like are either sent to the consumer indirectly or directly. Or but less likely spread over every tax payer, which again i stated is unacceptable.

Also already enough background checks are in place. It is extremely hard to get a weapon without a background check. The only people that sell weapons without a background check are family/friends. Almost every purchase is with an FFL…check gun broker. I have not looked hard but every weapon i have seen has required an FFL transfer.

The system is more than good enough for background checks….no need to make it even harder. I’ll be damned if i sell a weapon to a friend or family or some stranger and i need to spend all this money on a background check or throw the cost on the tax payer.

Also you getting a job and having a background check is not a government mandated law…big difference so you are making a completely irrelevant comparison. Also you and others do pay for that indirectly. Nothing is free.

Really you make it sound like there are these myriads of people dying from weapons due to poor practice and common sense. There are very few and again it is that persons problem not mine or anyone else’s. How much money do we waste on drunk driving garbage? Yet that causes well over 2x the deaths as weapons and we have countless laws and programs to stop it. How much money do we need to waste to stop something that people will do no matter what? I have known at least 30 people that drunk drive and they don’t care. They will fist fight you or even worse if you get in there way. Some people are a loss cause and that is not the general populations problem. I knew someone that had 3-6 DUI…forget the exact number and had his license removed and yet still drove everyday…working great! I knew several people that did that besides that one guy. Again not my problem enough laws are in place and more will not help.

Also to force a law saying you have to keep a weapon locked up is beyond crossing the line. I have probably 5 weapons laying around my house and i will not lock them up because i am not spending 2 grand to have “government” approved storage lockers in each place that i want to store one of my weapons. If i want to leave one in each room for easy access i will. When the government gets to the point telling someone what to do in their house it is well beyond the line. And yes countless things are beyond that line as is.

Also again when is it the place of someone else to justify for someone else what they do with their money? If they want a cell phone and a computer and a weapon without a biometric storage it is their own right to do it. This is beyond asinine where others claim they have the authority to say what a person can do. Also your statement above those ovens i find extremely far fetched and i would love to see proof. There are countless ways to kill yourself and other people. You can not mitigate every risk. I’ll gladly take my freedom over a false sense any day.

fuck totally forgot what the rest was….started ranting a but and forgot the other half :/

Also with about anything we have more than enough laws..it comes down to whether they are enforced or not or it is at the point doing anything else will have limited or no gain. We have a huge immigration problem but that is because current laws are not enforced. We have a drunk driving and weapons problem but that is because of society and no matter what you do it won’t get better without spending a damaging amount of money and removing freedoms, which i am 100% against. I rather be free than anything else. Also don’t even get me started with the government and how far reaching it is…go look at the EFF. http://www.EFF.org It is an absolute joke at how are bill of rights have been stripped from us. When this country was founded we had rights and the government and appointed people were supposed to work for us. Just look at the EFF and how they and the ACLU keep getting stonewalled with the “Freedom of information act” It is the biggest joke ever.

two fun ones there and a good example of why I’ll take my freedom any day and why i will fight tooth and nail to keep what i have left and will try to get my rights back. Check out the awesome document the FOIA lawsuit gave us….absolutely fucking nothing. 35 black pages…transparency at it’s best. The worse part is we spend billions a year filing lawsuits to stop them from taking rights away and to try to gain them back and at the same time we have to pay for the government lawyers to fight against us trying to keep us from having our rights…..now that is just a sick bullshit situation. We the people have to sue our own government to get our rights back and have to finance them in the process. WTF!

Correction it is thing one that has the FOIA PDF….don’t worry your not missing much but check it out

100% redacted…..that probably cost us a few million dollars to get 35 pages of nothing!

Kevin Jackson

It makes sense that you would need to pass a test to drive, cars kill far more people than guns.

HopelesslyFaithful

BTW how much does a good biometric lock cost? Plus all those regulations? I bet it is far more than 60% of the population can afford…hence why i am against it. If i have issues with justifying buying some good weapons and getting good training than how do you suppose the 60% of the population that makes less money than my wife and I? I bet to get all those things would cost at least a grand before even buying a weapon. Plus what inspections? Someone coming to a persons house? Psh fuck that shit. That is a complete infringement of someone’s rights plus registration is a joke. I’ll be damned to even register my little 22 possum shooting rifle. Again all this has never been necessary for the entire time out country has existed hence why i am 100% against it. I can come up with at least 10 reasons why you don’t give up your rights and how it just never ends in a continuous power grab. Hell we have law makes that are retarded enough to admit that they just pass laws and don’t even consider if it is Constitutional. They say it is up to the courts to decide so we have to spend 100s of millions of dollars…probably billions a year fighting to get out rights back because of these BS politicians.

here you go at ~5 mins she says her job is to pass laws let the courts decide….wow…what a smuck. Again a slipper slope that almost never goes back. Thank you senate frankinstien….sigh

Kevin Jackson

We should start applying your suggestions immediately for law enforcement as they more criminal than the general population (not opinion, documented fact). Do you watch the news? If you allow the Police to carry guns you should let anyone. Fix that problem then talk to me. Let’s start ensuring cops are of sound mind.

Russ

Right now they’re trying to craft the definitions on the psych evaluations to make veterans appear “unstable”. The best defense against an armed crazy person is an armed sane one. ;)

HopelesslyFaithful

than lets just ban cars since they will 6 times more than any gun does each year and that is not including all the accidents were people get injuries…just deaths. Let us go back to horse back and call it a day…

Kevin Jackson

Automatic assault weapons are heavily regulated, I know, I have one. Until pretty recently a legally owned one had NEVER been used criminally. Of course, the person that broke that perfect streak was a police officer.
Semi automatic assault rifles are no different from any other rifles except they may have black plastic stocks rather than wood stocks.
The day the US military no longer needs weapons, the Federal Government doesn’t need weapons and my state and local law enforcement doesn’t weapons will be the day I will not need weapons.
My semi automatic and automatic assault rifles are for the “common good”. I own and carry my semi automatic and automatic weapons for the same reason law enforcement does, to protect the public, my family, myself and my country. And just like any GOOD law enforcement officer I hope I never have to use them.

Russ

No.
All you’ll do is make criminals out of those who will not give up their rights. People who, without your interference, would not BE criminals.
Now, concerning the common good, what rights are you willing to give up for it? The right to the sovereignty of your own body? The right to be secure in your property and possessions? How about your right to vote?
What is “enough”?

HopelesslyFaithful

not sure about people but if you count the estimates of there being 300 mil weapons in the US and let us even go out on a limb and say each death is caused by a different weapon each time…which is obviously not true but let us assume that. That means each year 0.00217% of weapons kill someone. .1% is a gross over the top statement by 4615%

Joel Detrow

I know it was an overstatement, I just wanted to emphasize the small fraction of guns that are actually involved in the death of human beings, and didn’t have time to track down the statistic.

Honestly, I think at most, lives saved thanks to guns still pales in comparison to those taken by them. Let’s look at suicides – back in the day when gas ovens were a thing, it was common for people to commit suicide by turning the oven on and sticking their head in it. The government passed a regulation banning this type of oven, and wouldn’t you know it, suicide rates went down dramatically. It turns out when people don’t have a quick, easy, painless way to kill themselves, they just won’t. Very few would-be suicidal individuals are truly serious beyond a spur-of-the-moment decision.

That’s not to say I’m in favor of banning all guns (I’m not) but heavy, sensible regulation to minimize gun casualties is, IMO, far better than just letting everyone have them.

HopelesslyFaithful

ops i see i responded to this in my other comment. Check the most recent post in notification.

If anyone reads this essentially there are more than enough regulations in place and some people can’t be saved. plus there is a point where government steps across a line.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001594930079 Bill Wilson

That has got to be one of the most stupid things about suicide I’ve ever heard!! Are you for real? OMG, please stop posting, my sides are starting to hurt the more I read that you write. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Russ

I’m thinking you don’t believe in evolution. One of the things I like about it is that it weeds out the stupid and the mentally weak of a species. “Heavy regulation” defeats that.

You may not be able to make a bomb but radioactive materials are common in industry so dirty bombs and the like are pretty easy. Pathogens are living things so you only have to feed and care for them and they will reproduce in great numbers.
I suggest our children need a lot more from us as a society.

BradMueller

Given the materials I can do that now in a machine shop. What’s your point?

Kevin Jackson

No.
People are able to build those things now.

Lawrence Mayne

ever heard of project orion? A physicist in the 50’s figured out how to make tiny (relatively) nuclear explosions, for the purpose of moving serious tonnage to the closest stars. when I say serious tonnage, I am talking about 200,000 to a million tonne masses at (eventually) .2 c (c being the speed of light). You don’t need this equiptment to make what you fear, just an understanding of a few good nuclear chemistry / nuclear engineering textbooks. Stop making 3d printing out to be some behemoth of evil.

BradMueller

Too late. Anyone can buy a 3D printer that can print in resin. 3D printers that used a powder like starch have been around for at least 20 years. People have already used the starch prototype to make a lost wax mold and then cast the part.
I think that’s the way the make artificial hip joints now.

Kevin Jackson

They are pointless now as many have machine shops at home that can make guns and it is legal for one to do so.
As with all laws, compliance is voluntary.

yerfackingmammy

Gun bans have always been pointless. At least in terms of reducing crime.

Joel Detrow

Regulation and enforcement is critical. The US is far too large and has far too much border traffic to successfully enforce any ban on any popular commodity. However, making a gun with a machine shop at least requires some measure of skill and a great deal of investment in the equipment. Once any old 3D metal printer can be had for a few thousand dollars, it will become MUCH easier for unskilled individuals to manufacture a gun from scratch, at which point gun bans become…well, MORE pointless, at least in this country.

Neon Frank

Now its getting serious

One more thing STAR TREK prophesied; replicators

http://www.shapeways.com/ Duann Scott

Wait till we start 3D printing electronics at Shapeways :)

Joel Detrow

“You wouldn’t download a CAR would you?”

Actually, yes!

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Aka, my most hated advert evaaaah

Jerry

You wouldn’t steal a policeman’s helmet and then go to the toilet in it…

It sounds like this technology will never be seen outside of large industrial manufacturing plants. So far, car companies are safe from having their products downloaded.

Maventwo

But with electric cars, which have much less moving parts it will be easier to make parts in future with 3D-printers.

And why shall every carmaker make it´s car parts?
It must be much more efficient if car parts can be made closer to it´s car customers.

Forced Registration

Those facilities may be closer to the customer, but they’d still be owned by the carmaker, not the customer.

No matter how few moving parts, this metal 3D printer sounds like it could only be bought and operated by a big corporation with lots of money.

BradMueller

That’s what they used to say about computers. Eventually the technology will become ubiquitous.

manofsan

Do a Google search for “MetalicaRap”

ee mail

Mankind needs to be freed from the hard labor.
let mankind do the thinking, meditation and spirituality
and let robots do the rest of menial work.

So that Humans transcend and become gods.

Neon Frank

Wasn’t that the reason China’s making everything? How’s that working out?

Maventwo

To use high power laser for melting the metal powder in same nozzle as the metal powder is pumping out on the model surface seems to be a very efficient way for 3D-printing metal objects.

The swedish company Arcam outside of Gothenburg is using Electron-Beam for melting metal powder in their 3D-printing machines.http://www.arcam.com/index.aspx

ray allen

Lehigh university has a technique using powdered metal dispensers to create a transition joint for dissimilar metal welding.

I wonder if it could be adapted to allow the use of different types of metal powders to create objects with varying compositions.

This could, for example, allow the use of lighter materials for the shell of an object while strenghtening joints.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1534357187 Robert Stevenson

In the 1st stage, Why not use a metal strainer bottom to empty the powder instead of vaccuming it out? Would save a ton of time.

BradMueller

When they can print a crankshaft with the same strength as a forging, then they’ll have something.

DanielWChoi

Today in south Korean stock market, related stocks is skyrocketing upto upper limit price by market regulation. The skyrocketing has been being created by individuals. I think it is apparent that 3D printing will be a game changer, but time to market will be relatively long.
I’d like to know a movement of stock prices related to it.

DanielWChoi

And also, I think that success of this technology is mostly based on applicable materials and a size of products it can print. Price of the printers are going down rapidly, and so cost doesn’t matter largely.

Corey Dunsky

Two (very technical) questions for the author on his future-technologies comments:

1) 2-photon polymerization: Doesn’t the substrate (on which the laser acts) have to be transparent, so the laser focal point can be located some small distance down inside the top-most layer surface? How would that work with a metal-powder/binder mix? Wouldn’t the powder prevent absorption by the binder? (I’m familiar with 2PP in polymers and it’s amazing, but I’m far from certain it would work when there’s a high fraction of opaque material present. Has anyone demonstrated this?)

2) Femtosecond lasers: High peak intensity achieved by these lasers creates very clean micromachining results – material REMOVAL. If the process is to melt and fuse metal particles, why would high intensity be better? I would think the pulse would vaporize or otherwise disintegrate the particles rather than fusing them. This tends to happen with nanosecond pulsed lasers when run at high intensities (I have experience). Has anyone actually attempted using fs lasers in fusing metal powders? If so, can you please furnish a reference in the technical literature?

Thanks.

roma downey

I would highly recommend this kind of exploration- you never know what you will find Although your exploration shows through your beautiful images- Love the wren nest in your latest post.
machining alumina

http://www.polytechforum.com/ Polytech

Looking at the amount of manual work that’s required for production of the piece, it’s no wonder that pretty much all of the objects we see in the videos are art pieces. This is not manufacturing in the strict sense of that word, this is making art. The distinction may sound inconsequential but this technology just does not scale well. It’s greatly dependent on the skills of operators and dexterity of their fingers – not a good process for manufacturing. This is even before we talk about shrinkage while it’s baked and likely internal inconsistencies in material density if infusion didn’t go well.

in other words, I would not want to be stuck in a car with parts made this way. Cast model for a part printed this way – sure – but not the actual part. So, I’d say 3D manufacturing with metal will remain the final frontier for some time yet.

jashmetrology.com

Maintaining the equipment and purchasing the supplies for traditional contact printing has become difficult and expensive in the age of digital photography.

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